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Domino's Pizza Delivers Another Strong Set Of Quarterly Sales Figures

(Alliance News Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) LONDON (Alliance News) - Domino's Pizza Group PLC Wednesday said it made a strong start to the year, recording a 15% rise in the last quarter, as the number of sales made online continues to grow.

Domino's Pizza has stores in the UK, Germany, Republic of Ireland and Switzerland, and has recently enjoyed strong sales growth driven by improving consumer confidence in the UK, an improving product range, increased marketing and advertising scale and successful bundle sales.

In a trading update for the 13 weeks period ended March 30, the pizza delivery group said system sales, which are total sales made by all the company's franchisee and company-owned stores across the four countries in which it operates, rose almost 15% to GBP188.5 million, up from GBP164.1 million a year earlier. It said the rise was largely driven by strong like-for-like sales growth in the first part of the quarter.

Domino's Pizza said that 69.4% of all UK delivered sales in the period came via the internet, with sales taken through all online platforms up 25% to GBP103 million, 34% of which was taken through mobile devices, up from 25% a year ago.

The group said that like-for-like sales in the UK in 725 mature stores increased by 11%, with sales driven by its promotional meal deals, as well as weaker comparatives due to snow in the same period last year.

It said like-for-like sales growth slowed in the Republic of Ireland but remained positive, rising by 3.4% in the period in euro terms.

The group said that in Germany like-for-like growth remains subdued as it moves to a franchise-only business after its own stores performed poorly in the country. Like-for-like sales in euros in the period were up a mere 3.2%, compared with 40% growth the prior year.

In Switzerland, the group continues to refresh its estate, and said it remains on course to reach break even by the final quarter of the current financial year. For the 13 week period, like-for-like sales in Swiss franc terms at its 10 mature stores were up by 1.8%.

The group warned that it faces some tough comparatives later in the year, but it is confident in its business plans, and is optimistic about the current year.

"The pipeline and franchisee demand for new stores is healthy. Whilst we expect the number of sites opened in the year to be second-half weighted, we remain confident in delivering our target of 40 to 50 new stores in 2014," said Interim Chief Executive Officer David Wild in a statement.